Title: Mirage For Planet X
Author: Mullen, Stanley
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Mirage For Planet X" ***


                          MIRAGE FOR PLANET X

                           By STANLEY MULLEN

             _The prize was sealed, its contents unknown.
              Yet scavengers from a dozen barbaric Moons;
               adventurers from nameless, semi-explored
                 asteroids, arrived for the deathless
            auction.... To bid on Roper's notorious loot._

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Planet Stories Spring 1955.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


They were bringing in the prisoners who had escaped from Phobos. Sand
skimmer ambulances had raced to the spaceport outside the terraced
Martian city and waited. Dust devils danced on the wide, wind-whipped
Martian plains. Grannar of the Police and his silent companion examined
each body as it was lowered from the rescue ship.

Death anywhere is an ugly business. On Mars, you get used to bodies
that never rot. Deep-freeze temperatures hold down decay bacteria, and
the dry, cold air quickly dessicates the tissue. Bodies turn into
mummies that look and weigh like so much shredded wheat. But these
corpses were worse--they were meaningless parodies that might never
have been men. In primal disgust, Torry studied each one in turn, then
shuddered and shook his head.

Grannar was tough minded, or stronger stomached. Police routines had
taught him not to shudder.

"You can get used to this," he observed, enjoying Torry's revulsion.
"Since you'd known Roper, we thought you could help us identify him.
Thanks for coming along."

"Had I a choice?" asked Torry bitterly.

The policeman's laugh was brutal, explosive. "There is always a choice.
You can do as you're told or be dragged in screaming."

Torry grimaced. "Much more of this and I'll be dragged out screaming."

The prisoner-escapees, what was left of them, were an unpleasant
sight. Explosive decompression in airless space does curious things to
men's bodies. Blood boils in the veins and flesh bursts from internal
pressures. Also, there are heat-cold curiosities, with half a body
burnt raw on the sunward side, and the rest frozen iron-hard with a
lacy overlay of snowflake patterns in red.

Holden was still alive, by a miracle. Forward compartments had held
together when the makeshift spacer blew its flimsy self inside out. He
was alive but not talking. They brought the bulging mass of pulped,
purple flesh back to Mars and dumped it in a basket. There was no face,
no eyes, no recognizable hands or feet. For the time that remained to
him, Holden would be less than a functioning animal, fed by tube, cared
for by people he could not see or hear, living a precarious existence
on the raw, black fringe of life. Holden was through talking. And for
any practical purpose, through living.

"Too bad," said Grannar, looking into the basket. "He could have told
us about a lot of things ... if he'd wanted to."

"Holden was a nice guy before he knew Bart Roper," Torry snapped
angrily.

"You sound pretty bitter about Roper."

"I should be. I know him better than you do. I am bitter about Roper."

"Because of Holden?" pressed Grannar.

"Not ... Holden. But it might as easily have been me in that basket.
Six years ago I was Roper's partner. I got out quickly when I found out
some of his business methods. And I had very little he could steal from
me then. A lot of people have a variety of good reasons to hate Roper.
Just say that I'm one of them."

Grannar whistled a Martian tune. The sound was shrill and eery in the
thin air.

"You may as well ride back to the city in the police car with me," he
suggested. "We can talk--"

"Talk!" blurted Torry. He swore savagely. "All this ugly business
for nothing. You haven't found Roper yet. You don't even know if he
made good his escape from your prison moon. In short, you don't know
anything."

"True, up to a point," agreed the policeman quietly. "There are always
many things I don't know. So I concentrate on the few things I do
know. For example, you're very much interested in finding Roper. I'm
wondering why. You can tell me about that on our way back to the city.
About Roper himself, I know a few minor facts. Nobody has ever escaped
from Phobos, the prison moon, but Roper may have managed it. With
outside help, he got materials and fittings smuggled in to construct
a scratch spacer. It blew up, as we know, but Roper may have expected
that. In a good spacesuit, he could have survived. Since we still
haven't found him, dead or alive, he's probably circling somewhere in a
private orbit, waiting to be picked up."

"It could be a long wait. One man is hard to find in all that space."

"Not necessarily. A code transmitter powered by transuranic alloys
would keep sending indefinitely. And Roper could have agreed upon being
picked up at some point of a fixed orbit by his outside friends. We'll
find him, I think. In the meantime, we have you ... and some questions.
Wait in my car. I'll be with you as soon as I thumbprint some papers."

       *       *       *       *       *

Torry stumbled across the barren sand wastes of the spaceport, pitted
or glazed here and there by old take-off blasts. Without trouble he
located the half track vehicle bearing police insignia. He got in
and settled himself sourly to await Grannar's probing third degree.
He meditated grimly on Roper, himself, and his reasons for coming to
Mars....

Had it only been last night he arrived? It seemed eternities ago.
Coming in from Earth by short orbit express, green with deceleration
sickness, he had wondered why he was in such a rush. After four years
a cold trail would not get any colder. It had not, of course. It was
hot when he arrived and had been getting hotter by the minute. Only the
fact of being aboard the express at the time of the prison break had
cleared him in Grannar's eyes of being involved physically. And even
that alibi did not erase suspicion from Grannar's suspicious nature.

Grannar was shrewd and deadly, a born hunter of men. Since the Martians
never trust each other, most of the policing is done by hirelings from
other planets. Grannar was an Earthman originally. But he was a long
way from home, and twenty years on Mars had made him more Martian than
the natives. He was hard, smart, dangerous, and a tough man to fool.

Torry had learned that at once last night.

But Grannar's return to the police car cut short his reverie. Torry
watched the official cross the spaceport toward him, impressed by
the lithe grace and sureness of movement over treacherous sand. Mars
does something to a man who stays there. The body dries up and the
soul withers, but if he survives, a man grows into something lean and
leathery with pantherish strength and easy, poised motions.

Grannar vaulted to the driver's seat and slammed on power. With a skirl
of steering runners, the half track took off toward the bubble city of
New Chicago, named without tenderness by some long forgotten exile.
Grannar drove with careless violence, but the half track skimmer shot
among the dunes and low, lichen-clad hills without incident.

There is no truth to the charge that it takes as long to get from the
spaceport to New Chicago as it does to reach Mars from Earth. But the
distance is impressive and the going rough. Grannar talked as he drove,
seeming casual, but his questioning had the same icy skill and unerring
judgment.

"We'll start at the beginning," he said.

"There is no beginning," Torry jerked out angrily. "I got in last
night. Fresh from the spaceport and customs, I put a coin in the public
visiphone and asked Central Information about Roper. Central had no
information and returned my coin. It was a police trap. Your men picked
me up, searched me with a Geiger counter and found the coin. You keep
faintly radioactive coins in the visiphone machines for Central to
return when someone is curious about police business. It came out even.
You found out I was curious about Roper, and I found out he is police
business, and his case is current. Do you think I'd be fool enough to
call such attention to myself if I knew about Roper's prison break?"

"You might be. And it might be smart. That way you'd find out what the
police knew and what they were doing. And it could be an alibi in case
the breakout was delayed. We'll skip those possibilities for now. You
were mulish last night about certain questions. I'm still not clear
about why you are so desperate to find Roper. Why?"

Torry smiled coldly. "That's easy. I have to find him for a legal
release. Preferably dead, which will make things easier for everybody.
But if he's alive, I want his signature and prints on some papers."

"Why? What papers?"

Torry hesitated. "It's a touchy subject. A personal matter. Nothing to
do with the police."

"I'll be the judge of that. Keep talking."

"Have you ever spent five years on an asteroid all by yourself?"

Grannar grunted. "Fortunately not. Twenty years on Mars is bad enough
for me. Have you?"

Torry's face twisted in bitterness. "I have. I cracked up my one-man
spacecan while prospecting in the asteroids. I was there five years
until a survey ship happened by. There were minerals, low grade
transuranics, but good enough to work when you had nothing else to do.
I worked out the whole asteroid and had a good payload for the survey
ship when it brought me back. Not a big fortune, but a stake that
looked pretty good to me. I'm not rich now, but I can get along without
skipping meals."

"What's the connection with Roper?"

"None in that part of it. I went prospecting after I'd dissolved my
partnership with Roper. Times were bad, and I couldn't tie up with a
decent job. There was a girl--"

"There usually is. Who was she?"

"Rose Mead, then. She promised to wait for me. She didn't. She's
Roper's wife now. Not that I blame her too much. A year can be a long
time, and five years is longer when you're a castaway on a small
asteroid. Nothing to look at but a skyful of stars. Nothing to breathe
but hydroponic-cycle air. No food but your homemade synthetics and
the green stuff you grow in your chemical vats. You work and eat and
sleep, and any idea can become an obsession. Sometimes it's one woman,
sometimes an imaginary harem. I had a 3-d picture of Rose. It helped to
hold me together, or maybe it just channeled an idea that was bound to
go haywire."

"You're beginning to make sense," commented Grannar. "So you have an
obsession about Roper's wife?"

"I call it that. But I figure that all my money is not worth much if
it won't buy just one thing I've dreamed about for five long years.
There's a technicality about divorcing a man who's away from Earth, in
space. Rose is funny about it. But she's agreed that her marriage was
a mistake. She'll marry me if I can prove Roper is dead, or can get a
release from him."

"Is the girl worth all this trouble?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Torry grinned cynically. "Probably not. But Rose is a good, sound,
practical minded girl. Maybe my money looks good to her. Roper left her
four years ago with hardly any resources. For myself, after five years
of dream stuff, a solid human girl like Rose looks pretty good. Dream
stuff looks fragile, but it's mighty tough eating for a daily diet."

"So you want to find Roper. Preferably dead, you say. Does that include
pushing him off a cliff if you find him?"

Torry snorted. "It could. That depends on Roper."

The policeman echoed the snort. "Roper is dangerous. You may have
forgotten how tricky and ruthless he can be. Sounds to me like hunting
a tiger with a butterfly net."

Torry smiled viciously. "Even that can be done ... if the net is big
enough and strong enough. I'm counting on a curious twist in Roper's
mind. I'm a challenge to him--the one man so far he failed to swindle
or corrupt. He pulled a fast one about Rose, but he knows I wasn't
there to fight back. It galls him. And if he knows I'm here, alive, and
looking for him, maybe he'll find me and try to wipe out the one flaw
in his record."

Grannar shot a glance of grudging admiration, but shook his head. "At
the moment, I wouldn't count on it. He'll be busy and we'll see to it
that he is. But if you want to go looking for him, maybe I can help
you."

"Do you know where he is?"

"No, but I can give you some hints where to look."

"Why?" Torry was baffled.

"Two reasons. Maybe more, but two will do. I'm a cop, so I hate men
like Roper. If he's on Mars I'll get him sooner or later because I'm
a good cop. And it's my job. I hate crooks, so I'll kill him or catch
him and send him to Phobos for keeps. The second reason is that I hate
Mars. It's a tough world--what government there is is corrupt and
vicious. Offend the wrong people or stir things up, and you're out
without your pension. You can even get hurt. I want out while I'm still
ahead, with enough money to go back to Earth and live decently. And so
far I haven't that kind of money."

"I don't see the connection," protested Torry.

Grannar's bushy eyebrows crawled up and down like caterpillars.

"There's big money in this Roper business. There has to be for anyone
to take the risk of arranging a breakout from Phobos that costs plenty."

"Roper must have something pretty good this time to attract help like
that. What is it?"

Grannar shrugged. "I don't know. My guess is transuranics--the heavy
metals beyond uranium in the atomic table; the stuff that powers
planets. Without it our whole economy breaks down, and we can't even
afford to make air for places like Mars. But you've mined it yourself.
You know how rare and valuable it is."

"I know," said Torry. "You think Roper has a new source?"

"Maybe that, and maybe he's discovered or stolen a cheaper way to
process or transport it."

"It figures," admitted Torry. "Roper was always interested in
transuranics, and always looking for a squeeze play like that. He'd be
able to make his own terms, wouldn't he? Including squaring the charges
against him?"

"Just about any terms he dictated," grated the detective.

"Why tell me this?"

Grannar's eyes narrowed. "You want Roper for your own good reasons.
I want him for mine. My hands are tied but yours are not. If you want
him, go after him. I'll help, short of risking my job. I'm offering to
make a deal with you. It occurs to me that a couple of smart men could
make a real killing by knowing the right time to buy a few shares of
stock in transuranics. A man like me might even make enough to retire
to Earth, comfortably."

"You're beginning to make sense," said Torry. "What makes you so sure
I'll cut you in for a slice?"

Grannar laughed harshly. "My nuisance value, for one thing. My
usefulness for another. I'm an honest cop. But there's nothing in the
rule book that says I can't pick up valuable information on the side
while I'm doing my job. And nothing that says I can't put pressure on
you to help me do it. Besides, why should you balk at doing me a favor
when you're doing yourself one at the same time?"

"I'm still listening."

"New to Mars, aren't you?"

"New enough. I've been here before, but a long time ago and not for
long then. Why?"

"Do you know anything about the local set-up, the governments?"

"Not much. It's a kind of anarchy, I think. The big companies and even
the labor racketeers have private armies like the old goon squads.
Legal government is just a front for feudal gangs, with the police
sitting politely on the lid. Lobbies and pressure groups are the real
bosses. Is that right?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Grannar whistled his aimless Martian tune. "You said it. I didn't. Not
out loud. I never even think it in a room that might have microphones
or scanners. Mars is interesting, beautiful, with shreds and tatters
of an old, picturesque culture clinging to ivy-patterns to the new,
modern, cosmopolitan, industrial set-up. It says that in the books and
travel ads. Out here in the clean and lifeless air of a worn-out planet
I can have the precarious luxury of hating it. I want out, and you're
going to help me get out."

"Why stay anyhow?"

"Because I'm a cop and it's the only job I know. And bad as it is,
it's better than nothing. You've heard the yarn of the brash young
rookie in Earth's Sahara City, the guy famous for arresting the police
commissioner's daughter. I'm that cop. I hung a ticket on her for
traffic violation. It turned out she was drunk and speeding away from
an accident that killed somebody. The mess was too ugly to hush up, so
she went to prison and I went to the sticks for keeps. I resigned and
came here. So I learned to keep my mouth shut, do as I was told, and
never to move an inch out of line with the people who count."

"You're breaking my heart," Torry said bitterly. "Go on."

"Roper's not alone in this. Somebody with money and political influence
arranged that escape, probably picked him up off the wreck. Before he
went to Phobos he was mixed up with Trans-Uranic Miners Union, and also
with a Martian pressure group headed by old Sen Bas, the importer.
He may still be. I want no trouble with either. With you it doesn't
matter. Maybe you'll dig up a lot of interesting facts before you get
yourself killed."

"Get to the point."

"Spacefreight. Two large boxes consigned to Roper and Holden, his
partner. Still unopened, held in the unclaimed spacefreight warehouse.
Charges are high and Roper was broke. He tried to get money from
Trans-U and the Martians, but neither was buying a pig in a poke. Not
then. Maybe they are now. He must have convinced his backers, somehow.
But they can't get the space crates either unless I say so. Roper and
his pal tried robbery to raise money and landed on Phobos. I put the
crates under police seal."

"Why weren't they condemned and opened?"

"Too much red tape and money. The transport company can sell the stuff
legally for charges, but only at public auction, unopened, and bids
start at charges plus storage. Are you interested?"

Torry frowned. "My funds are not unlimited...."

"That's a chance we'll both have to take. I'm taking a chance on you
anyhow, but don't try any smart tricks. I always cover bets. The boxes
will be officially released for tomorrow's auction. All I ask is a
look inside at Roper's gimmick, whatever it is, so I'll know whether to
buy transuranics or not. If you buy the boxes the contents are yours.
Fair enough?"

Torry grunted. "If they sell low enough you'll get your look after I've
had mine."

"See that I do," warned Grannar. "And a word of advice. You can't
import weapons to Mars, but there's no law says you can't buy one here
and sleep with it. Shall I drop you at your hotel?"

The half track was nearing the domed city. A gigantic half bubble of
polarized plastic rose from the plain to enclose both the old Martian
town and the bustling, strident metropolis of New Chicago. From the
desert the dome was nearly invisible, but the architectural jumbles
looked like a forest of lighted Christmas trees appearing by magic in
the swift dusk of the red planet.

Torry grinned. "You're forgetting I spent my first night in jail."

Grannar scoffed, "Routine, one in jail, one in a hotel, the next in the
morgue...."


                                  II

An auction of unclaimed, refused or damaged spacefreight held more
surprises and excitements than a Martian wedding. All shipments were
sold "as is, unopened," which offered endless possibilities to a daring
purchaser.

Anything could pop out of a sealed space crate when the container was
broken into, and sometimes it did, literally. One unlucky bidder got
seven full grown grull cats, shipped from Venus in suspended animation.
His purchase caused seven minor riots until company guards with gas
guns could subdue the savage killers. Loot from a dozen inhabited
worlds and a hundred half explored moons and asteroids littered the
floor or spilled from damaged cases.

Bids ran high and two dozen small fortunes changed hands as Lots 1
to 24 went up at auction and were knocked down. Any bid on unclaimed
freight was a gamble, the one form not taxed to death by a greedy
government. And the inhabitants of New Chicago were gamblers, or they
would not have been there. The crowd was mixed and polyglot; human and
half-human species rubbed elbows and tempers to a fine frenzy.

"Lot 25," sang the auctioneer. "Who'll open?"

To avoid attracting attention, Torry had bid half-heartedly on several
previous items, breathing a sigh of relief when bids pyramided and the
lots sold to someone else.

This time, he merely sparked off the bidding, only to have a Martian
importer jump down his throat with an offer of twice the amount. Torry
dropped out as the bidding climbed in dizzy spirals, and the shipment
went to the impatient Martian for the price of a small spaceline.
Laughter rippled over the auction lofts as the boxes were opened and
found to contain forty small air conditioners of a type useless on Mars.

Lot 26 sold badly after that disappointment. It proved to be a treasure
of rare luminous birds from Venus, and collectors immediately offered
the fortunate purchaser triple his money for the lot.

"Lot 27," roared the auctioneer before excitement could die down. "Two
large boxes to be sold separately. No information on these ... except
that they were held overtime in storage and have just been released
from police seal. The space crates are undamaged. Who'll open?"

Torry felt like a small child back on Earth, clutching moist bronze
pennies in his hot, grimy fist as he ran to the corner candy store.
Nerves and muscles contracted in his throat. He opened his mouth but no
sound came out.

"Fifty credits," shouted the Martian who had bought Lot 25. "I want to
recoup my losses." He stared belligerently at Torry.

Somebody else doubled the bid.

Torry found a shadow of his voice and redoubled. Grinning evilly, the
Martian raised again, but not before he shot a wary glance across the
room. Torry met the challenge, then following the direction of the
Martian's glance, he spotted a Martian girl standing near the doorway.
She was so swathed in blue Venusian spidersilk as to be practically
invisible, and there was time for only a general impression. But Torry
did not miss the head-nod signal, instructing the Martian male to bid
for her. After the man's previous performance, Torry braced himself for
spirited competition.

Up and up went the bids ... astronomically.

At twenty thousand credits the Martian hesitated for an automatic mute
appeal to the feminine figure. The girl nodded again, but that moment's
doubt cost the Martian.

"... Third and last time. Sold to the Earthman ... for twenty thousand
credits."

Torry swallowed hard. He saw the girl glide toward him through the
crowd, moving as smoothly and silently as a ghost.

Like a maniac the Martian charged to the platform, croaking a loud
protest. Arguments became heated, voices were raised in harsh clamor,
then blows struck. Grinning, Torry watched the scramble. A knot of
uniformed company guards surged around the battling Martian and hustled
him from the auction rooms. A gas gun was used finally to subdue the
raging sportsman. While Torry waited for attendants to bring him the
box and his purchase receipts, he looked again for the girl but she had
melted into the crowd.

Interest was now roused to a high pitch. The auctioneer went into his
spiel in whatever alien language auctioneers use, and it was only by
knowing in advance what was being said that anyone could make sense of
the garble.

"... Other half of Lot 27," droned the husky voice. "How about a
thousand credits to open?"

"One thousand," Torry bid hoarsely.

He felt sweaty and feverish at the same time. Mentally he calculated
his remaining resources. A little more of this, and the show would be
out of his price class.

Bidding was rapid. In jumps the price went up from twenty to thirty
thousand. The Martian's hysteria seemed to have infected everyone. At
thirty-five thousand, bidding slowed.

"Thirty-six thousand," Torry bid.

       *       *       *       *       *

Moments lengthened and Torry's breath came slowly back. It was the
absolute limit of his available cash, and the auction terms were cash
on the spot. Numbly, he realized that his bid, if it were accepted,
used up more than half of his fortune from five years of lonely work.

"Thirty-seven thousand," offered a bull-throated voice. And a
barrel-bodied mine owner from Iobololy thrust himself forward as if to
give authority to his bid.

Torry had shot his wad. He could not raise the bid, and it meant loss
of the second box. Slowly, the starch dissolved out of him and he let
his excitement wilt.

With bidding so high, the auctioneer was not impatient. He studied
Torry hopefully. The moment extended. The gavel raised, slammed down.

"Going once."

A thrusting hand delved into Torry's pocket where he clutched grimly at
his sheaf of paper credits. For an awful moment he thought his pocket
was being picked. Then crisp, rustling paper bulged his pocket, and
realization bulged his eyes. There was no time for thought or argument.
In blind confusion, he drew out a packet of paper money and stared at
it. A cruel fist jabbed into Torry's ribs.

"Going twice ... at thirty-seven thousand."

"Forty thousand!" screamed Torry.

Bids climbed again, to fifty thousand, to fifty-five, then to sixty. At
sixty-two thousand, the fat man from Io gave up.

"Sold," droned the auctioneer. "I hope the man from Earth has the
money, and his money's worth. Now, Lot 28, five cases, one broken open.
The rest...."

Torry did not hear any more. He turned and stared blankly at a vision
in blue spidersilk. Gossamer fabric so swathed the girl, covering so
densely in so many folds, that she had no more form than an ear of
corn. A face showed dimly through layers of diaphanous cloth, but no
features were clear enough to have real definition.

"Who are you?" gasped Torry.

"Your partner." The voice, as smooth and silken as the garments, seemed
bodiless, but it suggested purringly that the girl was not. "Don't be
so obvious about it. We won't open the boxes here. Hire men to move our
loot and I'll have a robotruck waiting outside the freight doors in
five minutes. Be there."

Torry nodded dumbly. She vanished again, so quickly that he almost
wondered if he had imagined her. But her money was real enough. He
fumbled it, paying grim-faced attendants, then hired men to move the
heavy crates to the freight elevator. At street level, with the boxes
blocking most of the entrance, he waited.

A wheeled robotruck quickly appeared and the girl descended the ramp.
Like a blue fury, she directed the men and had the space crates loaded
in a brace of minutes. Then a hand snaked out from the fabric folds.

"Half of eighty-two thousand is forty-one thousand," she said. "We can
settle up now."

"Half of sixty-two thousand," objected Torry.

"You don't know me very well," she murmured. "It has to be all or
nothing."

The gun against his stomach decided Torry. "Don't be like that. You
win." He shrugged. "I guess we're both taking a chance at that.
Forty-one thousand is a heavy investment in curiosity."

The gun vanished. "You've no idea how much of a chance we're taking,"
she mused aloud. "People are curious. Yo Tyal is a fool, and I didn't
dare attract attention by bidding myself. Half of the Trans-U Miners'
goon squad was at that auction just watching me. You should know what
that means."

"Should I?"

"You should--if you don't. But we can't stand here talking like
moonstruck lovers. Not unless we're tired of living. Which is it,
partner, me or the goon squad?"

"You, I guess." Torry laughed grimly. "Though if I'd known about the
goon squad I'd have given you less argument."

Her head tossed under the myriad veilings of spidersilk. She scrambled
aboard the robotruck and pressed the motor stud. "Come on, then," she
ordered sharply.

The truck was in motion almost before Torry could leap to the seat
beside her.

Going at suicidal speed through the twisting alleyways of the old city,
Torry felt hopelessly confused and lost. Worse, the girl kept glancing
over her shoulder, and her driving suffered. It was reckless enough at
best.

"You drive," Torry urged. "Unless you're psychic you can't watch where
you're going and where we've just been. If anything's following us,
it's probably just an ambulance looking for business."

"Make sure," she ordered breathlessly.

At first Torry could distinguish nothing but a blurred rush of shadowy
buildings whirling away behind them as if being drawn toward some
colossal whirlpool. But he sensed pursuit, just as the girl had,
perhaps because she seemed to expect it. Then he saw two huge dark
vehicles race into view just before she swerved the robotruck around a
corner and shut off rear vision.

"We are being followed," he grudged. "Now where, partner?"

"Home, I had thought," she said. "But we'll never make it. And I don't
want those wolves going through our place. It's bad enough without
that."

       *       *       *       *       *

The robotruck hit a straight stretch. Pencil beams of light licked out
from the street-shadows behind. Fire flowers blossomed, but the noise
of heavy explosions was lost in the roar of racing motors. Showers of
dust and flakes of fiery, disintegrating masonry deluged the careening
robotruck.

Hurtling around a blind corner, the truck aimed itself into a narrow
opening between buildings. Metal ground and screamed in abrasive
contact with stone but the robotruck rebounded and careened down
side alleys, around sharp corners, and over moving walks fortunately
deserted. With the nerveless skill of an old trucker, the girl wrestled
some sanity into the vehicle and chose her route from the most unlikely
possibilities. At last, after a splint through a tangle of dark avenues
and narrow alleys she brought the robotruck to a brake melting halt in
the deep shadow of high, blank-faced buildings.

"See what I mean?" she said, voice loud and shrill in the silence that
seemed deafening with the motor cut out.

Shuddering, the girl crouched behind the seat shield and fumbled inside
her garment for the gun, alert for signs of pursuit.

"Relax," advised Torry. "We're alone for the moment. Wherever we are."

"It's an abandoned warehouse. Belongs to my grandfather," she gasped.
"Can you get those boxes inside with only me to help."

"Of course, if there's tackle, some wheels and a ramp."

With a coded light-key the girl opened heavy doors and got necessary
equipment. Fortunately, she was stronger than she looked, and about
as fragile as steel wire. She gave Torry no more mercy than she gave
herself. It was still a mean job.

Inside the vast, echoing interior, Torry and his companion seemed as
unimpressive as ants in an auditorium. Huge, vaulted lofts were dusty
with disuse. The huge cubes of the space crates looked like unmarked
dice, rolled by giants, and forgotten.

Torry was tired and irritable. "I've played along with you," he said.
"Now that we're here I'd like some facts. Because of the boxes, I'll
assume your connection with Roper. Who are you, and what is all this
about?"

"Don't you know?" demanded the girl. Laughing an icy trill, she threw
back the veiling spidersilk from head and face, bunching the material
neatly behind her neck. Her face was oddly elfin, and distorted to
curious proportions by the Martian half-mask of delicately etched
glass. Wide set eyes of periwinkle blue tilted at the corners, and the
smile of her sword-slash mouth was both teasing and disarming. Torry
was suddenly glad that there had been no such face as hers to remember
during his five-year exile.

"I'm Tharol Sen," she murmured. "My grandfather is Sen Bas, the Martian
importer. Does that explain anything?"

"It may," said Torry, "but not to me. I'm a stranger here, myself. Long
ago I was Roper's partner. We heard he was dead. You might say I'm
acting for his estate."

"Roper is still alive, very much alive. And don't worry, he can look
after his own affairs."

An ugly thought struck Torry, then, though he had gnawed at the idea
before. "You don't happen to be one of his affairs?"

Her smile vanished. The dark hair swirled like black smoke as she
tossed her head. Her eyes turned dark and cold with the arrogant pride
of her ancient race.

"That was a bad choice of words, partner," she said with a haughty
stare. "I have promised to marry Bart Roper."

Anger surged hotly in Torry.

"Bad choice of words for you, not me. Roper can't marry you or anyone
else. Whatever arrangement you have--" He stopped. "Did he happen to
mention a wife back on Earth?" He hoped the flash of resentment in him
was for Rose, not for himself.

"Roper said she was dead," the girl answered. "Perhaps he believes she
is dead. In any case, it doesn't matter. Martian law does not recognize
marriages on other planets. He can pay her off and I'll see that he
forgets her."

"Perhaps." Torry mastered himself. "I'd still like to know what I paid
all those credits for."

"Why not open the boxes and find out?"

       *       *       *       *       *

From a trapdoor locker she brought tools, an atomic torch and a huge
wrecking bar. The boxes yielded easily to persuasion.

The first box, which was smaller, contained an assortment of lenses.
Banks of atomic-electric batteries hooked up into an intricate
arrangement of copper wire coils did not explain any puzzles. Nor did
the contents of the larger case, which were mainly a folding framework
of metal suspending endless layers of foil or metalcloth too finely
woven for the eye to follow. The foil or fabric was eery stuff, as
unsubstantial as curdled moonlight. Like liquid mercury, it seemed
almost alive as it crawled away from the touch.

"I thought the only mirages you could buy came in bottles," commented
Torry unhappily.

"Don't be a fool," rasped the girl in a strange tone. "It is a
mirage ... for Planet X. I thought you knew more since you knew Roper.
But I'll stand by my agreement. All or nothing, both ways. I'd better
explain. And now that you're in, try to act intelligent. I'll tell you
all I can, then we'd better get this equipment to ... to my grandfather
before anything else happens."

A buzzer near the metal sliding doors droned a warning. The girl's face
turned upward toward a blinking red alarm light.

"I'd say something was already happening," said Torry.

"Someone's in the alley outside," gasped Tharol Sen. "It can't be the
police. They wouldn't dare interfere."

"Then who?--"

"Probably Ferax of Trans-U Miners Union. Or his strong-arm squad. If
they find us here with ... with that they'll kill both of us. I don't
know what to do."

"Why don't you stop fooling with that silly blaster gun? Give it to me
and find yourself a hole to crawl in. This is my department. Let me do
the worrying."

She laughed. "I might do just that." She handed over her pop-gun. It
was a typical woman's weapon, squat, flat and short-barreled. Up close
it could vaporize a man, but it would have no range worth mentioning.
Torry grinned at it in contempt. Motioning her out of the line of fire,
he crouched behind the wrecked crates.

A heavy crash echoed through the cavern-like vaults as force was
applied to the metal doors. But the doors were dur-steel, two inches
thick. They held, but the interior reverberated with harsh metallic
clangor. Two more blows sounded, then a lengthening silence. A circle
of redness glowed incandescent on the metal, spreading over the panels
like spilled paint. Waves of heat sprang outward. Heat haze danced
in the cool air as visible vibrations of blinding crimson radiated
from the softening door. Runnels of melting steel channeled the metal
surface, dripping to spatter on floor.

The girl was busy with something, but with his eyes riveted on the
door, Torry could not spare her any attention. He imagined she might be
trying to hide the contents of the boxes.

"They'll be through in a minute," she whispered.

Torry nodded. Drops of water splashed down suddenly. Torry felt it on
hands and face, glanced upward. Rain, inside a building in a domed
city! He must be crazy. But it was real. Drops became a deluge,
slashing down in increasing torrents. Water sizzled on the incandescent
door, and clouds of steam burst upward, obscuring everything. Pools
formed, joined. In moments the floor was inches deep in water.

"Automatic sprinklers," said the girl. "Set for any upward shift of
temperature."

Steam clouds cleared. A needle of light burned through. In rifts, Torry
saw the door dissolve, slide suddenly into a bubbling, spitting mass
that spread in fiery rush across the floor. In wild rush came dark
figures, dancing gingerly to avoid tongues of hot metal. Torry fired
carefully. He kept finger on stud until the blaster charge was used
up. He flung the useless weapon. But the dark figures were gone. The
doorway, with sagging leaves of soft metal, was empty.

"That's all, sister," he said, turning.

She was gone. Something like a blue flash whisked out of vision.
There was only the metal framework supporting a cylinder of the woven
quicksilver. And, as he watched, it vanished.

More dark figures blocked the doorway. They came at him in a surge of
reckless violence. He stood up and met them with empty hands. Then
darkness struck through his brain.


                                  III

Torry opened one eye cautiously. He was in bed, a soft bed with clean
linens. Beside the bed loomed a monstrous figure. Something that might
have been, and was, a Venusian type-R mutant. It seemed not quite
human, and big even for a Venusian. But it was not a stranger.

"Ferax!" whispered Torry, opening both eyes.

"It's been a long time," said the Venusian in thick accents.

"Not long enough."

Ferax laughed brutally. His head was a hairless globe of coarse
leather, into which some humorist had punched a parody of human
features while the material was still pliable. Nothing about Ferax
looked pliable now.

"You're still tough, Torry. And you're keeping fast company these days.
But you'll never learn to work with your brain instead of your fists or
a gun."

Torry smiled with bruised, pulpy lips. "Look who's talking. You're
getting soft, Ferax. Last time your boys worked over Roper and me we
couldn't walk or talk for a week. And I hear you're in fast company
yourself since you gave up strike-breaking and took over union
racketeering. You may be a big name now, but you're as ugly as ever.
And to me, you'll always smell like the skunk in the perfume works."

Ferax bellowed happily. "Smells are more subtle in higher brackets,
that's all. In a stinking world, nobody smells too pretty. Not even
you, and certainly not your girl friend--or is she Roper's?"

"Tharol Sen? Roper's, I guess. You'll have to ask them. I barely saw
the girl myself. I just got in night before last, spent a day answering
questions for the police, then rested up one night before buying myself
a package of trouble. Nobody tells me anything, so I'll have to guess.
Is Roper behind this rat race?"

Ferax grunted. "I could almost believe you don't know. So I'll tell
you. He's in with a Martian power grab. They need transuranic metals
to power their underground cities. The stuff is scarce and expensive.
Everyone's looking for new sources and we'll have to find some soon or
our whole economy will break down. The Martians are in the same jam,
desperate."

"Roper has a new source?"

"Not new. We all know where the metals are. Neptune's big moon, Triton.
And Pluto. The trouble is getting them out."

Torry shook his head. "But you've mined under bad conditions before.
Triton and Pluto should be no worse than some."

"Not the mining. Transportation. Freight rates from Pluto or Triton
would eat up all the profits. And take too much time. Who wants to
spend twelve years hauling in one shipload of ore? The answer is,
nobody. The Martians can afford the money since they're already paying
top rates for whatever we can supply. But we think Roper has a short
cut for transportation--"

"If he has I'd better get in with him. Sounds like a very good profit."

Ferax chuckled. "I know better than that. You and Roper hate each other
worse than you hate me. Besides, I can offer a better deal. He'll only
swindle you out of your cut, and you know it. Throw in with me and
you'll stay alive, plus a slice of whatever I take."

"Are you serious about that? If so, I'll have to think it over. Is
there any use asking you where I can find Roper?"

"No use at all," said Ferax, grinning. "I don't know. If I did, I'd
go there after him. If you do I'll have you followed. You always did
have a genius for picking the losing side, which makes it a pleasure to
fight you. You're free to go as soon as you're strong enough. If you
decide to play things my way, let me know. I'll give you a pass, day
or night. Getting into union headquarters is like breaking into the
mint. I live like a minor king, and the place is a fort."

Torry snorted. "It's probably safer that way, when so many people hate
your guts."

Ferax shrugged. "For that compliment I'll give you some free advice.
Don't tell the police about that shooting fray in the warehouse. You're
nobody, and the police would love to clear the union and your Martian
twirp by using you for scapegoat. You or the girl killed six of my best
hardheads. Also, if you see her or old Sen Bas, watch yourself. They're
both trickier than snakes and a lot more poisonous."

"One thing more," said Torry. "What happened to the girl?"

Ferax opened eyes wide. "You tell me. She was gone, along with the
stuff from the boxes. My men found you sprawled out unconscious from a
blow on the head. You were suckered, friend. Suckered."

Ferax produced a metal ident card impregnated with coded electronic
inks. "This will keep you out of jail if your cop friend has any such
ideas. Also, it will get you in here to see me anytime, day or night,
if you change your mind."

Torry laughed, but accepted the card uneasily. "That will be the day or
night...."

       *       *       *       *       *

Like all police stations, the building reeked of unwashed bodies and
harsh disinfectants. In Grannar's office, Torry faced out the storm.

"Amateur!" said Grannar in disgust. "Why did I ever get mixed up with
you?"

Torry glared back at him. "Our lovey-dovey arrangement is brittle
enough to break off any time you want it that way."

Grannar shook himself like a wet dog. "Not yet. Whether you know it or
not, you did pick up some interesting facts. I guess Tharol Sen has
tricked smarter men than you. And she'll probably keep that partnership
bargain, since Martians are funny about honor in a business deal. Since
she was the one at the auction we can assume that the Martians picked
up Roper from the wrecked escape ship and that he's alive."

"I'm sure she knows where Roper is," said Torry. "Now if I knew where
to find her--"

"That's easy enough," Grannar told him acidly. "Her grandfather has a
big place in the old Martian sector, about twenty acres on the surface
and Thol knows how many cubic miles of tunnels and cellars underground.
He calls himself an importer, and after his own quaint way, he is. Any
vice for a price. Sen Bas' Garden of Delights is a combination gambling
den, freak show, amusement park, carnival and emporium of forbidden
drugs and narcotic liquors. We've tried raiding the joint but gave that
up. Too risky, with their mines and booby traps, and the Martians just
scamper into the holes and get lost. Below ground is a rabbit warren of
caverns and tunnels and vaults that used to be for growing and curing
mushrooms and commercial molds. We know the girl is there, somewhere,
but--"

"But you're afraid to go in after her?"

"Not quite that. If ordered on regular police business I'd go poking
into even that Martian hornet's nest. But we have nothing on her or Sen
Bas, and only a suspicion that Roper's hiding there. Since you muffed
something easy, like the auction, I doubt if you could manage to get
in, let alone locate her or Roper."

"Who says I muffed anything?" demanded Torry irritably. "I know what
was in the boxes, though I didn't tell the girl I knew. It's a matter
transmitter, the only one in the Solar System. An inventor back on
Earth was knocked on the head and his working model stolen. He's alive,
but has lost his memory, and the plans were taken along with the model.
Roper's big secret is stolen property, but getting it back may be a
problem. I didn't guess what it was till the girl used it to escape
from the warehouse. Probably they want the thing to bring back heavy
metal ores from Triton or Pluto. I've learned more in three days than
you did in four years."

Grannar bowed sardonically. "Oh, sure. I apologize. And now I'm sure
you can lay hands on a man with a perfect escape method--from anywhere
to anywhere. The ratholes were bad enough, but this really does it."

"The girl is still a good lead," said Torry quietly. "I'm going after
her. Are you, or do I have to ask help from Ferax?"

"Suit yourself about Ferax. I won't risk my job on a chance Roper
might be there--"

"How much is your job worth?" asked Torry, with a sneer.

Grannar's face twitched. "For half that dough you threw away at the
auction, I could buy a plankton farm on Earth...."

Torry licked his lips and left. Back at the hotel he cashed a bank
draft and put twenty thousand credits in currency into an envelope with
a note and sent it to Grannar. The note began:

    _I've always wanted to buy a policeman. Now you can afford to do
    your job. I'm seeing Ferax first, but with or without his help,
    I'm going after Roper._

Terse instructions followed. Torry did not expect too much of Grannar,
but the man represented law and authority as far as either existed on
Mars, and dealing with Roper, Ferax, and the Martians all at once was
scarcely a one-man job.

       *       *       *       *       *

Trans-U Miners Union housed itself in a citadel remarkable even on
Mars. It occupied the center of a large area, cleared, floodlighted
and surrounded by a charged wire fence. Inside the defense circle were
booby traps triggered for the first careless step off marked pathways
patrolled by robot guards. Torry's metal ident card got him through the
gateway by tripping electronic relays, and each incorruptible robot
guard passed him after being shown the card.

At the building doorway he had to satisfy a series of dubious and hard
bitten human questioners, but his pass and the magic name of Ferax got
him inside.

Doors opened. Robot voices directed him across echoing lobbies to a
bank of elevators. In a locked cage he descended five floors below
surface level. In the corridor another bodiless voice spoke:

"End of the hall. Door on the right."

Torry followed directions. The ritual was getting on his nerves. His
footsteps echoed hollowly. The place smelled damp and moldy as a
tomb. Opening the door on the right with a wave of his keyed pass, he
realized that it was, in a sense, a tomb. There was a body in it. A
dead body.

Ferax sprawled across an ornate desk of Venusian chibar wood and
kru-leather.

Luminous particles from a blaster discharge still danced in the air.
A lingering bite of charred, exploding flesh stung the nostrils.
There was little left of the torso, but a lolling globular head
identified the corpse. A discarded gun clanked as Torry's foot kicked
it. He hesitated, then picked it up and renewed the charge. It was an
automatic reflex of defense, and fingerprint evidence was not likely
to matter now. If found on the spot he would have little chance for
explanations.

The thing had happened only minutes ago. Whoever did it, the killer
must still be close at hand. A roving flicker of pale radiance warned
Torry that a scanner was in use. By whom? From where? No complex mental
processes were needed to convince Torry that he was in a bad spot.
The goon squads were notorious for acting first and asking questions
afterwards.

Getting into the citadel to see Ferax had been interesting enough.
Getting out again promised to be more so. If he ever got out.

The office door was opening slowly. Silently Torry glided behind
it. Reaching around it, he snatched cloth and flesh and dragged a
struggling form into the room.

"Tharol Sen!" The girl was panting, her periwinkle eyes wide and glazed
with horror.

Torry subdued her writhings by jamming the blaster muzzle hard into her
flesh.

"Talk low," he ordered. "But talk fast. Why did you kill Ferax?"

"I didn't. I found him like that, just a moment ago. I heard the
blaster and looked in quickly. Then I hid in the office across. I heard
something and came back here. That's all I know." Her voice ended on a
wail.

Torry jerked up the elfin face and studied it savagely. For some reason
he believed her. But there was more to explain, even if someone else
had killed the labor racketeer, and little time for explanations.

"How did you get in here?" he snapped. "And why?"

She threw back her head in a characteristic gesture. Her eyes sparkled.

"Roper had come here. He was so long that I got worried. I came
through...." She stopped talking suddenly.

"Through the transmitter? I know about it, so you can call it by the
right name."

Tharol Sen nodded numbly.

"That means Roper killed him."

The girl jerked angrily. "Bart Roper wouldn't do that. He wouldn't kill
an unarmed man. Probably you killed him, and just want to throw the
blame on ... on us."

Torry ignored her. "Roper would be too smart to leave any evidence. So
I'll leave it for him." From his pocket he took a small lighter with a
name engraved on it, quickly scrubbed it free of prints and dropped it
on the floor as if it had fallen in the excitement of murder. It would
not carry conviction, but it would be proof of Roper's presence and his
reputation would do the rest.

"You fool," said Tharol Sen. "I'm a witness, and I saw you do that.
I'll testify."

"Do that," taunted Torry viciously, "if it ever comes to a trial.
Who'll believe you? And I don't think the strong arm boys will wait
for a trial. If you can get back through that transmitter screen, we'd
better do it before someone finds us here."

"Take you?" she snarled. "I'd rather die here."

"You have that choice."

She changed her mind. Torry did not misread the flash of wicked triumph
on her face. He did not have to.

"All right," she yielded. "Bart Roper will know how to take care of
you. Come ahead, if you dare. The transmitter screen is in the opposite
office."

Torry sighed bitterly. "I'll chance Roper. I've already had one session
with the goons."

       *       *       *       *       *

The quicksilver screen was three-dimensional, and possibly four, since
it seemed to exist in two places at once and linked them without
regard to intervening distance. It was a hollow cylinder supported by
metal framework, and the insubstantial fabric glowed and pulsed with
electrical current. Inside was darkness and a sense of infinite space.
Walking through the odd fabric one encountered nothing material, but
a prickling touched every skin surface, then soaked through the bone
centers.

Leaving the force field of the screen was more exhilarating, and
almost painful. It was like breaking an electrical contact; muscles
jerked spasmodically, hair stood on end, and hot sparks discharged from
any moist portions of the skin. Torry had not realized how drenched his
body was in cold sweat. He stepped out, gasping.

He stepped into paradise, or hell. Unreality.

Martian subcellar gardens are startling to outsiders. In the air
was the bitter tang of narcotic incense. Smoke distorted vision.
Nightmarish fantasies of mobile murals in rich colors writhed on the
walls. The ceiling was an illusion of sky and stars, complete with
intricacies of celestial mechanics, and the flooring resembled grassy
sward, set with miniature pools and cool, gurgling streams, crossed by
arching bridges of carved and tined ivory. Singing birds and trilling
winged serpents filled the air with sound and motion. Luminous bubbles
rose and burst above lighted, musical fountains. Musicians toyed with
the acrid melodies of ancient Mars, and only close inspection proved
the dancing girls 3-d projections.

It was a painstaking reproduction, pitiful and exquisite, of the richly
barbaric and luxuriant youth of a now-dying planet. To a Martian, it
would have been nostalgic and lovely. To Torry, fresh from the scent of
blood and death, it was a garish mockery, like a painted corpse.

Torry recoiled painfully, both from the setting and from the living man
who seemed part of it.

Sen Bas was as dried and shriveled as a Martian mummy. Only his eyes
seemed alive.

"You can put away your gun," said Sen Bas, his wrinkled face a mask of
malicious humor. "You are in no danger here."

Oddly, there was no feeling of menace, and Torry found himself putting
away his weapon. Will power beat from Sen Bas as it does from hypno
machines, and his personality held fearful compulsion.

"But he's--" began Tharol Sen hysterically.

Still smiling, Sen Bas nodded like a bizarre doll with a swinging
pendulum attached to its head. "No matter. Since we made a deal with
Roper when we picked him up off Phobos, we must do as he says ... in
some matters. Roper has gone ahead. He wants this man, Torry, sent to
him ... there. There is use for him ... where Roper has gone. Until
then, he is our guest, and we must show him every courtesy."

Torry studied the old man calmly. "You can use place names, Sen Bas. I
know about the transuranics on Triton and Pluto. But how could Roper
have gone ahead when we were using the transmitter? It can't be three
places at once."

Sen Bas frowned. "No, it cannot. Unfortunately, it has many
limitations. This is a second model copied by my engineers for study
and experiment. To our distress we have learned that ores of the heavy
metals cannot be transmitted since their radioactivity has an effect
on the force field. But now, with trouble coming, this model must be
destroyed."

From a pouch Sen Bas drew a tiny sub-sonic whistle upon which he blew
a soundless note. Martian technicians quickly appeared. Sen Bas issued
commands, and the transmitter was rapidly dismantled and removed to
incinerators.

"Good idea," approved Torry. "Ferax is dead. The police--"

"I know. The transmitter is not as instantaneous as it seems to the
user. Time also is distorted, as well as space. Hours have passed. You
are the last person known to have seen Ferax, so you are wanted by the
police and others for questioning. I was not certain you would come
through the screens, so my agents are scouring the city for you. Roper
has gone ahead to Triton, and wants you to join him there where we can
make contact."

"How long will that take?"

Sen Bas blinked. "Who knows? My scientists say it depends on the
relative positions of Triton and Mars. The best time will be in five
or six days, but you may have to go sooner. Tharol Sen can show
you around, and when the time is right, she will take you to the
transmitter. It is securely hidden where the police will not find it.
In the meantime--"

"I'm a prisoner?"

Sen Bas giggled. "Not exactly. Say, my guest. Your only jailers are
outside. Let us hope they will stay there until you can go to Roper ...
as he requested."

"Roper must have been in a hurry to get away," grated Torry.

"He was. For excellent reasons. A Solar Survey ship is due off Triton
at any time. Roper wanted to be in sole possession of the satellite,
with samples to make good his claims to minerals."

Suddenly, everything happened at once. Shrill alarms blared from a
dozen quarters. Red lights flared ominously. A fusillade of shots broke
out.

Sen Bas swore luridly in Martian. "The police!"

Heavy explosions thundered overhead. The ceiling cracked, opened wide.
An avalanche of steel and stone and breaking glass roared into the
subcellar gardens. Dust clouds blinded Torry.


                                  IV

From the collapsing roof tons of debris poured into the underground
gardens and spread over the floor like advancing mountains. Dust
choked, Torry staggered blindly before it in panic to avoid being
caught and buried. It was like a swift, deadly race with an engulfing
landslide.

Free of the confusion and deafening tumult, he turned to look about
for Sen Bas and the girl. In the dust cloud it was impossible to see
anything. Masses of masonry and fused glass from the collapsing cavern
roof continued to detach themselves and crash down in random uproar.
Cautiously, Torry picked his way over the mounds of rubble, searching.

A feeble cry led him to Sen Bas. The aged Martian looked like a
tattered bundle of red rags. Half buried under a hillock of shattered
stone and twisted steel, the old man showed little sign of life, save
for still-glittering eyes and husks of sound emerging from bloodless
lips. Spreading stains of red seeped from beneath the prisoning blocks.

"If I can lift the stones, can you drag yourself out?" asked Torry.

"Don't--think--so!" gasped Sen Bas.

"Where can I find help?"

"Don't try. Go--quickly. Save yourself. The alarms--police--maybe union
killers. Go--"

"Not yet," snapped Torry. "We'll worry about the rest after I get you
out."

The old man protested. "I'm--old. Does not matter. Get to--transmitter.
My people must have--"

Ignoring him, Torry worked. Feverishly he searched for and found a
length of reinforcing steel. With it, he dug into debris of glass and
stone and tortured steel. Mass by mass, he levered it up and rolled it
aside. Fingers raw, steel bending in his hands, he strained to uncover
the writhing, bleeding form of Sen Bas. At last he wedged up the
last mass and reached under to drag out the ancient Martian. Sen Bas
screamed as he came free, but the agony left his face.

"You're hurting him," raged Tharol Sen. She stumbled toward them, her
face a mask of hate.

"No!" cried Sen Bas. Gathering breath, he whispered, "He saved me."
Then pallor flooded his pinched features.

Torry knelt beside him, not even looking at the girl. "Shut up!" he
ordered. "Get bandages--painkilling drugs. He's badly crushed, bleeding
to death. Don't argue. Hurry!"

Sen Bas blinked. "Do as he says...." Tharol Sen disappeared.

Alone, Sen Bas stared curiously at his rescuer. "I should have ordered
you both to the transmitter. My men could care for me ... if it
matters."

"Not soon enough. Roper can wait."

Sen Bas shook his head. "Roper might. My people cannot. We need heavier
metals to power our underground cities. We are a dying race."

"You're a dying man. Don't talk."

The old Martian composed his features with great dignity. "What better
time? Our need is desperate. We must claim the transuranics on Triton.
Even though they must be freighted here, since they cannot be brought
through the transmitter. We tried it, and failed. You know Roper. Will
he deal fairly with us?"

Torry shook his head sadly. "No."

Sen Bas did not seem surprised. "I feared that. Will you?"

"I'll try, though I'll have to do what seems best when I get to it."

Sen Bas relaxed. "That is good enough. Did you come to Mars to kill
him?"

A shiver wrenched Torry, his eyes glazed. "I haven't decided yet."

"Perhaps it would be best. But he will not be easy to kill. Tharol Sen
will take you to him. Perhaps by the time fate has to choose between
you and Roper, her blindness will be gone, and she can make a clear
choice of her own...."

"How did you--"

With a convulsive grimace, Sen Bas was dead. Moments later, when Tharol
Sen appeared loaded with medical supplies, Torry glared at her. Her
face a chalk mask, she whimpered.

"Forget it," Torry said angrily. "It's too late for tears."

"Why did you try to save him?"

"If you have to ask, you'd never understand."

Tharol Sen shuddered. "I don't understand anything about you. Who you
are. Why you hate us so--"

"Who says I do?"

"Roper. He says--"

"Never mind what he says. I suppose there's no use trying to convince
you that he never tells the truth if a lie will serve as well. He's
a known criminal, a thief and swindler, and even a murderer. A man
who abandoned his wife on Earth, and a small child he's never seen.
Frankly, I don't understand you, and I'm not sure I'd want to. You're
quite determined to marry him?"

"Quite." Tharol Sen stiffened.

"Well, that's your hard luck. He's no good. No good for you, or anyone.
Not even for himself."

"Nothing you can say matters. He told me about that wife. She's too
sane, too normal and practical for him. He thinks that I--"

Torry was not listening. Contrasting Tharol Sen with Rose, he was
almost inclined to agree with Roper, and envy him such a loyal and
spirited defender. The girl was pure-blood Martian, with all the eery
beauty of the strange race. She was young but vibrantly alive and
human. There was emotional depth in her, and a passionate savagery that
might inspire a man to passion, or to devotion, depending upon the man.

"Besides," finished Tharol Sen, "there is no other man like him."

"Not quite like him, fortunately." Torry laughed bitterly. "I'm a lot
like him, if you haven't noticed. But nicer ... and sometimes smarter."

"That's a matter of opinion," she said acidly. "Yours and mine. But you
do resemble him. You're ... you're not--"

"I'm afraid I am. I'm ashamed to admit it, but Bart Roper and I had the
same mother. He's my half-brother."

       *       *       *       *       *

Her face was puzzled. "Then why--"

Torry tightened visibly. "I don't know. Or maybe I just don't want to
face it yet. We hate each other as only brothers can. You'd better know
that before you take me to him. I may have to kill him."

Tharol Sen sneered. "I don't think you can kill him. I'll take you to
him because both Roper and my grandfather wanted me to. Roper can deal
with you as he sees fit. But if I think you're a danger to him, I'll
kill you. Understand that."

Torry shrugged. "On that basis I'll accept your help. Now you'd better
find that transmitter. I suspect that the explosions were the police or
the goon squads breaking in."

"They were," she said nastily. "They ran into booby traps in the upper
levels. It will take them a while."

"I wouldn't count on too much time," warned Roper. "Grannar is a smart
policeman, and the goon squads seemed to know their work."

"This way."

Tharol Sen was coldly aloof, and seemed both preoccupied and depressed,
which was natural. She went ahead, wordlessly, and Torry followed,
lost in his own reflections. At the far end of Sen Bas' wrecked garden
was a steel-arched doorway, high, sombre and gothic. Beyond, and
below, lay the sprawling vastness of vaults and caverns which was the
Martian underworld. Long, curvings ramps led downward into a complex of
subsurface workings far below New Chicago.

They descended and slipped quietly across large, echoing platforms
whose dimensions were lost in gloom. Metal-shod stairways spiraled
upward and downward into invisible infinities. Deep shafts vibrated
with strange sounds the ear could not catch or identify. Freight
tunnels were yawning maws of darkness, like the staring, sightless
eyes of some mythical monster created on too large a scale for man to
understand.

Torry grew tense and nervous. He began to sense patterns of shivering,
eery movement about him. Walls and ceilings closed in suddenly, and
he could make out vague, monstrous forms set into niches within walls
carved of bedrock. Old-Martian gods in sculpture--leering stone
spectres, goblin-like, and subtly obscene.

Tharol Sen paused. Her hand sought Torry's and drew him close, but not
in friendliness. She whispered harshly, warning him to silence and
extreme caution.

"I was wrong. The police have broken through. Some are already in the
vaults."

She followed a maze of barely visible threadlike guidelines of
luminosity set into the metallic tiling. A few steps more brought them
to a wide platform, from which many tunnel mouths opened. Along one
wall ranged banks of elevators. Beyond were ranks of empty pneumatic
tube cars on tracks which angled in sharp descent into wells a level
below the platform. Spidery Martian hieroglyphs labeled various shafts
and the tube terminals. Tharol Sen studied the markings closely before
making her choice.

"I have been here only once before," she complained. "It is not easy to
find the way. But I think the police will have more trouble."

She selected a pneumatic tube car. Torry boosted her to the door flap.
She settled herself in the tiny seat cradle, then from inside, extended
him a helping hand. For the first time she noticed his blistered palms
and raw fingers. He grunted painfully as she drew him up beside her.

"I should have bandaged your hands," she mused.

Torry snorted. "Can you drive this shuttle? It has more gadgets than a
space ship."

"One way to find out," murmured Tharol Sen icily, poking a slim
finger at a keyboard of colored studs. Distant machinery whirred and
whined. Flaps banged shut and the shuttle car shot forward and down at
sickening speed. Tharol Sen laughed, and the sound was of ice chips
trickling on metal foil.

Air whipped angrily about the shell of thin metal. There was no gut
wrenching nausea of acceleration, only sharp awareness of speed.
Movement became a blur streaming past the transparent plastic cartop.
It was like being part of a hollow missile fired from an air gun. As
the car's original impetus diminished, speed dwindled. The car dipped
and slowed, then ran into a stop valve, like a piston in a closed
cylinder, and stopped on a dense cushion of compressed air.

Another vista of platforms radiated away from the terminal.

Gripping Torry's hand, Tharol Sen dragged him firmly along the
platform, then down a steep slant to the lowest levels. At intervals,
radilumes provided glaring light, but shadows of raw fantasy lingered
curiously near the walls. Tomblike oppression gathered around them.
Panic grows quickly underground; weight of rock pressing overhead
translates itself to the brain in terms of claustrophobia.

       *       *       *       *       *

Metallic decking became raw stone floor, and an endless tunnel unwound
before them. Torry lost all track of direction, even the primary up
and down. They went through underground workings like city streets
lined with open front factories. Gray, barren vistas of workrooms were
relieved by the stark symmetries of sleek machines, shielded atomic
converters, and patiently revolving turbines. Here was the marvelously
efficient underground economy of the old Martian civilization, still
functioning and serving the remnants of a great race of builders and
scientists.

On soaring cantilevered balconies and in alcoves, Torry glimpsed cliff
like structures of offices and dwellings. Giant compressors labored to
force a mighty pulse of breakable air--but the atmosphere was warm,
dry and stifling. Runnels of sweat ran down Torry's body and vanished
in quick evaporation; fever and exertion alternated in him; he blew
hot and cold as energy burned away too quickly, and as drying sweat
produced intense, quick chills. Temperatures dropped. Air seemed denser
and was poisonously clouded with dust, but it was cool. Slowly it
became chill and depressing with a hint of dampness in it. They came
into a maze of galleries and pits, tunnels and vaults, less used and
uninhabited portions of the deep-workings.

It was like a world apart, a place of dim storage bins with natural
refrigeration, of packing sheds piled high with mountains of commercial
molds, bales of dry, compressed and packed mushrooms. It smelled stale
and foul, the air hideous with a powdery mist of mold dust and spores,
and the incredible mustiness of mushroom spoilage. These caverns were
empty of life, as if the troglodyte Martians had long ago joined their
mummied dead.

Weakness suddenly caught up with Torry. Dizzy, he caught in panic at
Tharol Sen for support. Grudgingly, after a moment's hesitation, she
granted the help.

"I'm sorry," Torry apologized. "It's been a rather active three days. I
guess Ferax and his boys hurt me more than I had thought."

"They are good at hurting people," admitted the girl. "You still want
to go on in this condition?"

"Don't mind me. Just give me a minute." Torry was painfully aware of
her strong, slender body beneath the filmy garments of spidersilk. To
change the subject, he said, "Don't tell me you're planning to venture
out to Pluto or Triton in that costume?"

Tharol Sen made a face. "Hardly. There are spacesuits ready. We'll need
them, don't worry. Roper says Triton is hardly livable at all, even
protected. You'll find out if you've the nerve to go through with me."

"So Planet X is not even a planet, just one of Neptune's moons?"

"Perhaps it was a planet once. Both Pluto and Triton are not like the
rest of the solar system planets. They may have been two stray worlds
from outer space, captured long ago by our sun. For their size they
have mass out of all proportion. The quantities of heavy metals beyond
uranium give them extreme weight and density. Pluto has a density of
over fifty times that of water. Triton not so much, but still greater
by far than Earth's density, which is roughly five or six times that of
water. Though smaller than Mercury or Ganymede, Triton has a gravity
only slightly less than Earth's and a far denser atmosphere blanket."

Torry laughed grimly. "That's a big speech for you."

"Too long a speech," she agreed irritably. "Especially with the police
close behind us."

Torry sighed. "Okay. We'll go on. This is a lot of trouble over one
slimy mirage salesman."

"Mirage salesman? Why do you call him that?"

"Simple enough. That's all he's ever peddled. Pot of gold at the end of
the rainbow to tempt the greedy and unwary. And rainbows are circular,
with no beginning and no end. Haven't you ever heard the term?"

"I have now. I wondered, that's all. There are mirages on Triton. He'll
have plenty to sell."

Torry snorted. "I can see you've bought one."

Flasher signals on the wall began to blink rapidly.

They moved steadily onward, faster than before, into a still more
shadowy region. Light itself seemed to exist only at long intervals
where age-old radilumes performed a feeble service. The spongy floor
of rotten bedrock was scummed over with moss to make for slippery
footing. Formations of natural rock seemed like stage furniture
designed by elves and gnomes, in which stone mimicked monstrosities of
the vegetable world. Fat, knotted stalagmites suggested tree trunks,
and the darkness overhead appeared like shadowy densities of foliage.
Seepage had fretted the walls into lacy limestone traceries like a fern
forest. They went on, with tense silence savage between them.

Alarm blinkers flashed light codes of rapid pursuit.

"Your people must have had much contact with the police to have worked
out such a set-up," observed Torry.

Tharol Sen nodded. "We have been persecuted for centuries. Not many
Earthfolk have ever been here. Nor any others but my own people."

"Yet the police seem to be finding their way."

Tharol Sen frowned. "That puzzles me," she admitted. "How could they
come here at all unless someone has betrayed us?"

From close behind sounded the loud buzzing of a radiation detector. A
thin pencil beam flashed at them and splashed wetly over the cavern
wall ahead. Rock shattered in a brittle, crunchy explosion. Murderous
chips deluged the tunnel.

Torry lunged at the girl, dragging her down in a savage fall. More
beams of light licked out, this time from several directions.
Continuous thunders roared and reverberated, stunning ears and brains
with concussion and sound. Roughly, Torry thrust the girl into a wall
niche for shelter.

"The police!" wailed Tharol Sen.

"Looks as if we're trapped. We'd better give ourselves up."

She stared at him with contempt. "You still have your gun. If you're
afraid, give it to me."

"One gun against a dozen. No thanks."

Waiting for a lull in the blast uproar, Torry called out. His voice
rang hollowly in the cavern, still shuddering with echoes of the
explosions.

"Hold your fire. We're coming out."

Grannar's voice answered. "Throw out your gun first."

Torry complied. His gun rattled on the floor of rock.

Pushing Tharol Sen sullenly before him, Torry stood clear. In a moment,
the tunnel was full of uniformed figures.

Grannar studied Torry with some amusement. "You needn't have gone so
fast. I got your note, but your trail ran into a dead end at Ferax's
office. It took time to pick it up again but we found it beside Sen
Bas' body in his gardens. Clever deal, Torry. Using radioactive dust on
your shoes like that. Shall we handcuff Tharol Sen and take her back?"

"No," answered Torry glumly. "She's going to show us the way to Roper."

"So you betrayed us?" asked Tharol Sen, contempt making her face ugly.

"That's a matter of opinion."

Grannar broke in. "Better pick up your gun, Torry. You may need it. How
many men shall we take?"

Torry shrugged. "That depends on the number of spacesuits available.
How many, Tharol Sen?"

"Three," she replied bitterly. "Do you think two of you dare tackle
Roper alone?"

"I think so. How about it, Grannar?"

The policeman grunted.

The matter transmitter was already set up. Upon its folding framework
the screen glittered like woven quicksilver, vibrating to the hum of
electro magnetic flow.

"Will this take us directly to Roper?" asked Grannar.

"Not quite," said Torry, grinning. "It's a delicate adjustment. Mars
and Neptune both in motion, and Triton's orbit and axial rotation to
consider. We'll be somewhere on Triton--"

"But Triton has more land surface than Earth. Can we find--"

Torry gestured. "She'll find him for us. Have your men stand by and
switch on the transmitter every three hours."

Dressed for space, the three entered the screen.


                                   V

Planet X--or Neptune's moon, Triton--was a vast mirage with many
facets. Atmosphere was as dense and still as water in ocean deeps. Sky
was cloudless, but not clear, apparently built up of different layers
of gases, and the light was both glaring and erratic. At a distance of
over three and a half billion miles from the Sun, most of the light
was not sunlight, and the little that came through the air ocean was
filtered and absorbed into curious colors and intensities. Other
illumination sources were auroral displays, radioactive hotspots that
glowed like eery ghosts, and volcanic outbursts of crimson or gold.

Surface pressure of the atmospheric ocean was extreme, and the gas
densities and weird light gave an uncanny submarine illusion. Venturing
onto the surface of Triton, Torry felt like a diver in that long-past
period when man's last frontier on Earth had seemed the ocean deeps.
Gravity, greater than on Mars, but less than Earth's, gave a sense of
buoyancy; the spacesuiting was not unlike ancient diving costume; and
the thickness of the atmosphere itself suggested deep, still water.

Most disturbing of all were the mirages. All the familiar effects of
Earth mirages were present but magnified and even multiplied into
infinite complexities. To a scientist of optics or meteorology, Triton
would be a superb laboratory. To Torry, it was--

Near madness...!

Mirages by hundreds and thousands floated between surface and zenith,
or hugged the ground like captive nightmares. Pinnacled dream mountains
rose from bases of empty air. Phantom battlements and mock castles
stormed upward from nothing. Magnified rockeries became goblin cities,
looming near or far in equal scale. Water glittered in the sky and
on the ground, and floating debris became fleets of fairy argosies.
Lateral mirages played eery jokes with distance. All images seemed
unreal, and diffraction haloed them with misty, rainbow coloring.

Triton itself was bleak, savage, merciless, nearly windless but for
vagrant currents of slow-moving dense air, like currents in an ocean.

By levels, temperatures were absurdly high or low, depending upon
location or freak circumstances. It was a lifeless world, inhospitable
to man. But it wore a mask and costume of exotic, lying beauty, and
masquerade was hard to distinguish from the harsh reality. Anything
definite was hard to distinguish.

Grannar turned up the microphone in his helmet, and his words rattled
from Torry's speaker.

"How can we find Roper in such a madhouse as this?" he roared.

Torry winced as the amplified outburst thundered in his ears.

"Simple enough," he replied. "Fine detective you are. There's a radio
compass built into Tharol Sen's suit. Roper's sending all the time.
She'll go to him like a homing pigeon."

"Pigeon is right," muttered Grannar. "Hope it's not too far. A little
more of this would make me neurotic. Can we trust her?"

Torry laughed. "Yes and no. She hates us, but she'll lead us to Roper.
That transmitter is his only way back to Mars. And hers, too. Isn't
that right, Tharol Sen?"

Fortunately her reply did not come through clearly.

Following the radio compass, which behaved erratically due to magnetic
discharges, they moved through the wilderness of the mirages. Progress
was deceptive, without reliable landmarks. Rugged terrain made
treacherous going. Megalithic cities and monstrous mountains appeared
and disappeared like patterns in a kaleidoscope. In the eccentric
lighting, vision itself seemed to flicker as treacherously as a three-d
projector running out of balance. Constant distortions and fading out
produced mental nausea and physical insecurity.

Torry was not sure where his next step would take him. One instant he
seemed to flounder on the edge of abyss. The next, he would be climbing
what seemed an interminable mountain, only to have solid floors of rock
shimmer and vanish before his eyes. It was impossible to see where they
were going, or even be certain what it was like where they had just
been. Only the needle of the radio compass held any steadiness at all,
and that jerked into wild whirlings now and then as magnetic currents
ebbed and flowed in the ground.

They seemed, through rifts in the mirages, to be traversing a monstrous
field of jagged boulders, inclined slightly upward. Even these rocks
were not always as substantial as they looked, but for the most part,
they were real obstacles. The thought crossed Torry's mind that it
would be a bad place for an ambush if Roper were so inclined.

When the facts materialized his fears, the pencil beam of a blaster
cutting through the mirages seemed only part of a dazzling auroral
display.

       *       *       *       *       *

The explosion that followed demonstrated its reality. Rock chips and
larger fragments rained about them. In the dense medium of atmosphere,
the shock wave was terrific, and even his spacesuit did not completely
insulate the blow. All three were flung about as if by earthquake.
Torry missed his footing and went down in a long sprawl, which saved
his life.

The second blaster flash would have targeted him dead center. It
flickered harmless over him, touched the nearby boulders to sudden
glare, then lost itself in fearful detonation. Dodging the hail of
debris, Torry crawled quickly to shelter behind a larger boulder. With
gauntleted hands, he tested its solidity before he trusted himself to
relax.

A harsh cry of pain and terror echoed in his ears. Its tones held
desperation. And the voice was Grannar's.

By concentrating Torry could dimly make out the figure of the
detective. Grannar lay in a tumbled heap, threshing wildly and trying
to hold shut great rents in his space suit. He seemed to be injured,
for one leg was motionless while the rest of his body worked in
convulsions.

Torry left his shelter and bounded toward the casualty. He bundled
Grannar roughly to his feet and hustled him into the nearest tangle
of solid rocks. A hastily aimed blaster beam hurried him at the task.
Crouching down, he examined Grannar. The policeman was conscious,
swearing valiantly. His leg was broken. Inside the space suit it would
be impossible to set the fracture. And outside, the toxic gases of
Triton would make short work of human breathing. Even the rents in the
suiting were dangerous.

Working quickly, Torry clipped together the rents and sealed them
hermetically with compound from the repair kits.

"That's the best I can do," he told the policeman grimly as his eyes
searched in vain for a sign of Roper. "You'll have to stand the rest
till we can get out of here and back to Mars."

"What are our chances of getting out?"

A man does not shrug in a spacesuit. "Not good," said Torry. "Roper can
keep us pinned here as long as he likes."

"How long d'you think that'll be?"

Torry grunted. "Till he gets tired of it and decides to stalk us and
kill us. Or till I go out and get him."

"I see. It's like that, eh? Where's the girl?"

"Who knows? She's either hiding out in the rocks, like us, or she's
found a way to join Roper. Does it matter?"

"Not to me," mused Grannar. "I just hoped maybe she wasn't as rotten as
Roper ... that she might give us a chance."

"Don't count on it," said Torry spitefully. "She might be as pure as an
angel, but Roper's sold her a bill of goods. Feeling as she does about
him, she'd kill either of us as quickly as Roper would."

They waited in silence, while mirages came and went around them,
as light shifted, or slight currents stirred in the turbid air. If
Roper were a mirage salesman, he had certainly made his stand in the
wholesale house. Under other circumstances, Torry might have found
the displays interesting, even entertaining--but at the moment, his
reflections were as poisonous as the air on Triton.

Colors flared and faded like a cross-spectrum of inferno.

Grannar was restless with the pain in his leg. His squirming infected
Torry, who leaned out above the barrier of rocks waving his hand
violently. As he hoped, he attracted attention. A thin wire of light
kissed the rocks of the barrier. Chips pelted like hail, and the force
of the blast set up thunderous echoes in his helmet.

"He must have rigged a scanner of some sort. Such shooting is too good
for a man with mirages in his eyes. Would something like infra-red
help?"

"I don't know," groaned Grannar. "In any case, we haven't the time or
the means to work out a scanner."

"I think I'll try crawling out of here. If I keep low, I might be able
to work around and come up behind him. Is it all right with you if I
give it a try?"

"Why not? Outside of your life, what have you got to lose?"

"I hate to leave you here unless you want it that way. But there's not
much future for you, anyhow, if I stay."

"Do whatever you like. I guess I owe you something, and I like to pay
my debts. Any other last wishes?"

"Just one. I want him...."

"Roper? You want to kill him?" Grannar sounded baffled.

"Kill or cure."

"I don't understand."

"You want him on Mars for murder. He's wanted on Earth for lesser
crimes. That gives you priority. You can demand and get extradition
for him to Mars, which means quick death in the atomic disintegrators,
or slow death in the prison mines. On Earth, they have a clinic for
incurables like Roper. It's a free choice for them, euthanasia or
voluntary submission to the clinic."

Grannar hesitated. "I know about that. But isn't such a treatment
almost as dangerous as being killed outright, and a lot tougher on the
subject?"

"It can be," granted Torry flatly. "Sometimes the hypnotic
memory-blanking or the shock treatment wrecks the brain. And the
glandular surgery and hormone dosage can turn a man into a freak and
monster. If it works, the criminal is rebuilt mentally and morally,
re-created with a new personality, and completely new educational
background. He's hardly the same man, and often his old friends can't
recognize him physically."

Grannar's eyes narrowed. "In Roper's case, that might be an advantage.
Of course I'm familiar with the clinic and its work in rehabilitating
incorrigibles. But do you think any treatment could work the miracle
with Roper?"

"I don't know and don't care. People like Roper help make life colorful
and interesting. But they're too hard on everyone around them. His
adolescent-stasis carries his own damnation for him. He's miserably
unhappy, along with everyone who knows him. He imagines he's smarter
and superior to other people, and that it's his duty to prey on them.
Mentally, he's a rotten-spoiled child. But a dangerous one. Like the
one rotten apple, he spreads his rottenness through the whole barrel."

"I'm familiar with that theory of crime but I don't go along with it.
I'm not convinced you can unspoil a rotten apple, and I doubt if it's
worth while to try."

"No matter," said Torry grimly. "If they fail on him, they'll destroy
him. Either way, it will make a better world for everyone. Probably I
hate him more than you do. But I'm willing to give him this last chance
if you'll let me."

Grannar laughed ironically. "Have it your way, if you can take him.
It's out of my hands, actually. Though, as a cop, I'd be better
satisfied if you burned him down here, I'll settle for your clinic.
It's a nasty enough choice, anyhow. If you can capture or kill him, go
ahead. I'll gladly resign my share of the brute to you. And you'll earn
it. Do you really think you can crawl out of here and circle him?"

Torry glanced sourly at the flickering mirages. "I can try," he said
slowly.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a mirage that saved Torry.

Going proved even rougher than he had expected. Squirming over unknown
terrain is hard, even in conditions of fair visibility. On Triton,
with its constantly varying light, and the ever-present confusion of
mirages, it was fantastic. The cumbersome space suit was no help.

Darkness thickened around him, but the mirages grew worse, as he toiled
up the slope. Loose stones rattled about him in tiny avalanches, and he
went more carefully, lest they betray him to Roper. Sweat bathed him
inside his insulated costume, and steam misted the helmet's face plate
before he could get the thermal conditioners functioning properly. A
bad foothold earned him a nasty fall, and the rough suiting and acid
sweat combined to burn painful blisters on hands and knees.

In grim determination approximating madness, he plunged upward and
onward. He found an eroded ravine and groped blindly along it,
wondering what fearful liquids had gashed such a gully on such a
nightmarish world.

Alien dusk gathered, and in the hollow of the ravine writhed coils
of living light. At intervals, he avoided the hot glaring flares of
radioactive hotspots. Torry followed the barren fissure, and strange
sounds and fleeting light-phantoms followed him. And a river of dense,
sluggish air funneled upward through the gully, whispering of ugly,
forgotten events upon a forgotten world. In the uneasy sky overhead,
electrical discharges wove networks of colored lightnings, which
crackled and hissed as static in his earphones.

Nearing the upper end of the gully, Torry halted and took stock of
his surroundings. He estimated progress, and wondered how he would
ever find his quarry. His quest seemed one more mad illusion in the
sequence of mirages. He freed his blaster from its magnetic belt clip
and examined it for charge. Crawling with the weapon in his hand was
awkward, but it would be suicide to be caught reaching for it. Grimly
he worked his way to the notch of the ravine and poked out his head.

Ironically, it was the mirage that saved him.

A lateral mirage, distorting both distance and direction, showed him
a sharp image, inverted, of Roper aiming carefully in the opposite
direction.

Instantly, Torry let go his grasp and dropped. He fell and rolled
savagely, while the lance of light stabbed overhead, and the explosion
started small landslides around him. He screamed in momentary panic.
Preventing a helpless plunge into an abyss which opened before him was
a chore. And the abyss itself proved only illusion. Solid wall blocked
his fall and stunned him for a terrible moment. Miraculously, he
retained a grip on his gun.

He lay quietly, while rocks continued to rattle upon his helmet and
spacesuit. Someone was descending toward him. It could be only--

Roper.

The visible face behind the plate of transparent plastic could
have been poured in the same mold as Torry's. It was younger,
finer-featured, but it was shrewd, self-indulgent. Roper had enjoyed
his life of crime, and it had agreed with him. He looked healthy,
humorously handsome and extremely well-fed.

He stared at Torry, and the expression on his face changed as he saw
the blaster. He started a movement toward his own clipped weapon.

"Don't try it, Bart," ordered Torry sharply. "I think I'd enjoy killing
you."

Bart Roper sighed deeply. "You took unfair advantage of me," he
complained. "I thought you were hurt or killed. I was coming to see--"

"To make sure of me, if you'd missed? Maybe not. Maybe you did have a
human impulse for once. I'll try to think so. And you can see how much
it hurts when someone takes advantage of any human weakness. It hurts,
doesn't it?"

Roper nodded slowly. "It does. So you've got me! Don't be so proud of
yourself. It wasn't that hard. I was cooked from the moment your police
pals got their hands on the transmitter. It was my only way out. You
know that, of course. I just wanted the pleasure of taking some of you
with me. I'm not going back to Mars. The disintegrators, or life in the
prison mines don't appeal to me. So you'd better kill me now."

"I will if you force me," Torry told him wearily. "But I'm not making
it that easy for you. There's a choice, but you won't like it. I've
made a deal with Grannar. You can die now, or you can go back to Earth
to the clinic."

"The clinic!" shrieked Roper. "You know what that means. I wouldn't be
the same person. Maybe not even human."

Torry steadied his eyes on his brother. "I'm not sure you ever were
human. But you need treatment. They'll knock out your thymus, drug
you and shock you and carve you till you'll never know yourself. You
won't be an antisocial monster with the emotional stasis of a child.
You won't be anything you've ever been. But you may be a man. And
you'll stop hurting people, or they'll stop you for good. The choice is
yours--right now. So make up both our minds before I decide to shoot."

Roper yielded with a grimace of distaste. "You win, Torry. You always
did, sooner or later. I was quicker, but you were smarter. I guess
Rose was the last of your toys I'll ever swipe. And it's back to
kindergarten for Bart Roper."

Torry relaxed, though he still did not lower his gun.

"You'll be going back on the survey ship, Bart. That way, you'll have a
long voyage in the brig to meditate on your sins. But on Earth, you'll
have Rose. You're a married man there, with a wife and child. Rose
still loves you, Bart. When you steal something, it stays stolen. I'm
not going back, so you'll get Rose after all."

Roper laughed coldly. "That's what I meant about your being smarter
than I am. You always come out ahead."

Torry's eyes followed a moving mirage to a notch high on the walls of
the gully. The glitter of cold metal was not illusion. Tharol Sen held
a gun on him, unwaveringly.

"You can come out now," Torry said to her. "It's all over."

Tharol Sen lowered her gun and walked unsteadily toward them.

"Why didn't you shoot?" Roper stormed at her angrily. "You could have
killed him before he pulled the trigger."

Inside her face plate. Torry could see her eyes dim with hot tears.

"Yes, I could have," she said brokenly. "But maybe I've seen enough
mirages to recognize one...."

       *       *       *       *       *

Many Martian hours later, three people watched the survey ship blast
off from Triton. Before the ship left, Grannar had been taken aboard
and removed from his spacesuit long enough for drugs to be administered
and his legs set and splinted. Now, with painkilling narcotics
deadening him, the policeman was scarcely aware of the departing ship
with his prisoner aboard, consigned bodily to Earth and its clinic for
incurable criminals. Grannar had relaxed into a dope-daydream of a
comfortable future on Earth as a plankton farmer, with nothing to do
but read minifilm detective stories.

Watching the ship vanish beyond a skyful of mirages, Torry tried vainly
to conquer a feeling of depression. Loneliness swept over him, as if
with the sudden termination of his obsession about Roper, his life had
lost most of its meaning. It occurred to him suddenly that Tharol Sen
must be feeling infinitely worse. With a quick glance toward Grannar
to make sure that the policeman was all right, Torry climbed slowly to
the eyrie in the high rocks where the girl had hidden herself. Like a
doll in a space suit, Tharol Sen huddled together, staring upward as if
toward some vanishing illusion.

Shared loneliness sometimes loses its sting.

But Tharol Sen ignored Torry's presence, and he felt acutely
embarrassed.

"You'll be better off without him," Torry said, consoling her. "And
life will be much simpler."

"I know that," she replied sharply. "What else did you want?"

Torry laughed.

"Business, I guess. According to Solar Spacelaw, we three are sole
owners of Triton and its mineral rights, since we were on the spot and
in possession when the survey ship arrived. Your people will have the
transuranics they need. But the stuff won't work in the transmitter, so
it'll have to go in the hard way. High freight charges will cut down
the profits, so I don't think any of us will get rich. I'm sure that
Grannar will sell his rights cheap: And as far as I'm concerned, I'd
rather your people had the stuff at cost, so I'll sign over my rights
to them for the forty-one thousand credits I've invested. Also, you can
claim salvage rights on the transmitter of a third of the value, and
I'm sure the inventor will be happy to have it back at that. I won't
ask any part of the salvage claim. Money just weighs me down anyhow."

"That's very generous of you," murmured Tharol Sen. "My people will be
very grateful to you."

"And you," he asked. "Just how grateful will you be?"

Her eyes blinked, then stared soberly through the face plate of her
helmet. "Ask that again--"

"It's not part of the deal, of course. But you bragged that you
could make Roper forget a girl back on Earth. I need some full time
forgetting, and I wondered if you'd like to try the same stunt for me."

Tharol Sen studied him for a long moment before answering.

"When we're out of these helmets," she said softly, "you can kiss me.
Just once. For gratitude. Afterward, much later, we can think about the
rest, and discuss it with dignity. If you're staying on Mars, why not
look me up ... sometime?"

"Why not?" asked Torry, grinning. Then without waiting for the kiss, he
made his decision. "And I'm staying on Mars...."



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Mirage For Planet X" ***

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